Blog

There are no “easy” stages of parenting. There is always something to learn and determine what works best for your child and your family. Finding support and resources to help guide us to the answers are key.

I had a thoughtful conversation in our Happy With Baby Community Facebook Group with Kara Haug, Sexual Health Educator at Reframing Our Stories. Kara has a gift for teaching comprehensive sexual health without the shame or guilt, but with excitement, engagement, compassion, and the invitat…

 Here’s something funny that both new motherhood and a pandemic have in common: It’s easy to lose track of what day it is. 

For most of us, we don’t have those usual time markers. No Friday evening happy hours after work. No school buses making their usual stops on our street. Nowhere to rush to. Weekly grocery shopping trips are now done with the click of a button at home instead of a pleasant Sunday outing.  

In spite of all the changes, there’s still plenty to do. Dishes and laundry m…

They say having a baby changes everything… bodies included, especially for us mommas. I’ve had women share with me that they avoid running and jumping and dread having to cough or sneeze, due to potential leaking. There are even concerns about sex not being the same after the baby is born. Plus many other changes.

We can have so many questions and sometimes are not sure where to go for answers. 

I had an amazing conversation in our Happy With Baby Community Facebook Group with Dr. Samantha Ste…

Times have been so heavy and hard and there are days I feel like I can’t do any of it. There are days when I don’t want to do any of it. And if I’m being honest, I have imagined hiding and crying under my blanket, with the hope that my kids won’t find me. 

My initial instinct is to wallow in the depths of the heaviness. But, when I give into that impulse, I become stuck. I end up wasting time worrying about feeling bad, sad or angry. 

What really feels supportive for me is allowing myself the …

Earlier this summer, I had to make a really hard decision. I decided to let go of my Happy With Baby office space.

I stewed over this idea for so long. It consumed my thoughts for a long time. It might seem silly, but for me, it was really emotional. I loved my office. It was a result of a lot of hard work in building my business first. I wasn’t always in this office space. I had a few different office spaces before this one and upgraded gradually over time. You know, if you do it right, you st…

Sheltering in place during a pandemic weirdly has a lot in common with having a new baby at home.  

OK, generally, I don’t encourage comparing one person’s struggle to another, but I have to admit that there are a lot of common themes that seem to be coming up for people lately. 

The new moms I’ve worked with over the course of my career often say that they’re tired all the time, that new motherhood is lonely and isolating, that they’re ashamed to admit they’re bored at times, that all the day…

Right now, the present moment is so challenging for so many of us.  

Some of us are adjusting to new parenthood during a pandemic without the support people we were banking on to help. As if new parenthood wasn’t isolating and difficult enough. It is exhausting and bittersweet (if not straight up heartbreaking) work.

Some of us feel like this pandemic has put our relationships with our partners in a pressure cooker. As if our culture doesn’t already encourage us to expect our partners to be ev…

Insurance Deductibles and Superbills and Self-Pay, Oh my!

Often, when new clients come to me, they already know what they need. They’re ready to do the work that therapy will inevitably ask of them. They often can tell if they want to work with me or not. Typically, they’re ready to book that first appointment. The only question left is: How will the sessions be paid for?

There’s no one right way to handle this. It really depends on a person’s situation. Some clients prefer to pay out-of-pocke…

I had been planning on writing a blog post on grief for you for many months. Long before the Coronavirus was a word on the tip of everyone’s tongues. It was a post about the grief that comes along with motherhood.  

(I asked around and moms were all too eager to share what they missed most, from missing their pre-baby bodies, their friends, their freedom, the simplicity and spontaneity they used to have in their lives, the uninterrupted conversations they used to have with their partners, to tr…

These are unprecedented times, friends. (So unprecedented that I’m getting sick of the word!) So, if you’re feeling anxious, stressed, unsure, lonely or scared right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic….it’s completely justified.  

I want to support you through this, so as a start, I’ve compiled a list of resources and options to help you stay sane and manage it all. This is a long post, so hang in there. I promise it’s very skimmable and most suggestions are free and available to everyone.  

You…

Remember the good old days when you and your partner were just dating and your sex life was hot?  Back when it just seemed to happen spontaneously without too much effort?  

Ah, yes, the days before life got so busy with babies and kids and taking on more responsibility in our careers and taking care of our aging parents. 

Back then, it seemed like all the fun parts of a relationship--the butterflies, the romance, the mystery, the bedroom activity--just happened spontaneously or with little ef…

I just learned that today, January 17th, is National Ditch Your Resolution Day. Did you know that was even a thing? I sure didn’t.

I mean, we all know that basically, every gym is going to be crowded in January and empty by March. We know that less than half of people who make resolutions don’t accomplish them by the end of the year.  In fact, according to U.S. News, 80% of New Year’s Resolutions fail by the second week of February!  

But still. The thought that there is a national holiday…

Everybody knows the holidays aren’t really about all the errands, all the stuff, or all the money spent. And yet, we find ourselves in this spot every year, battling holiday burnout with the connection we really crave.

This time of year can be hard for many of us, particularly those feeling the loss of a loved one, new parents who are too busy or sleep-deprived to have much of a social life (or because their friends have stopped checking in), some might even feel lonely in their own marriage.

Have you ever tried to start a gratitude jar with your family or a gratitude journaling habit that just didn’t stick?

It seems like everywhere you look, there’s an article or book all about the benefits of gratitude and how and why you should start up a gratitude practice. Trying to get through the stress of the holidays? Practice gratitude. Want to improve your health? Pr…

I’d never taken myself for one to suffer from anxiety. It was only in looking back at events in my life that I can now see what was actually going on.

Turns out, there has been a pretty consistent trend in my life: At every major transitional corner I’ve turned--every stressful point in my life--I’ve always gotten sick. I’m not talking about your run-of-the-mill cold and flu kind of thing. I’m talking SICK sick. 

When I was in high school, I missed weeks of school due to severe illness. When…

Parenthood throws us a lot of curve balls. Particularly in the first year of a baby’s life, but really, the surprises never stop.

Recently, I stumbled upon an article on Romper called “37 Moms Share What They Wish They Had Known Before Having Their First Kid.” 

Naturally, it made me think about my own experiences and what I wish I knew before I became a mom.

In case you’re now wondering, my biggest shocker was that it never even occurred to me that having a baby would be hard on my relati…

Have you been thinking about having another baby and are not sure if you should take the leap?

After having our son, I clearly remember being totally unsure if we should “risk” having another. He was pretty easy. He started sleeping through the night at 11 months, he ate his vegetables, he was mild-mannered and super social so he actually helped my husband and I meet new friends and our neighbors. He made us laugh and brought a lot of joy to our lives. And laughing is always good.

You can’t ge…

Well, love it or hate it friends, but Valentine’s Day is upon us. For some of us, this is an easy holiday to scoff at or ignore. For others, this day matters quite a lot. Me? I think I fall somewhere in the middle.

On the one hand, I think the expectations and stress of “doing it right” can really set us up to feel hurt, disappointed, or feel as though we’ve failed. I really dislike that piece of the holiday the most.

Not to mention, many say that Valentine’s Day is a commercial holiday. And…

Honest Insights for Expecting Couples

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve said “Your partner is not a mind reader”....

I know. It never feels very good to have to make the same request over and over. It feels just as bad or worse to feel unheard, unnoticed or not considered.

The thing is, it’s important to make your feelings heard and state your needs. It’s equally important to get your message across in a way that will be received. Sometimes our delivery, though authentic, can make …

Little things all add up to big results.

All month long, I’ve been talking about why it’s important to put yourself first and prioritize your relationship. It sounds counterintuitive or even unnatural when you say it out loud, but doing those two things first makes taking care of a baby so much easier. It’s really worth a try.

Something I hear many moms say is that they worry about whether they’re doing this parenting thing right. Well, in my opinion, if you’re worried about it, that’s a…

When our lives feel overloaded, it can seem like we don’t have much room to be flexible. We can feel like we don’t have much choice.

Sometimes we really don’t have much choice. After all, somebody’s got to feed and change the baby, right? Somebody’s got to bring home the paycheck, pick up the groceries, take the car in for an oil change…. You get the idea.

But, sometimes I think we say “I can’t do that” before we even consider what our choices are. It feels impossible. As if it’s out of ou…

It’s almost instinctive for parents--mothers especially--to put their children first.  

It’s so ingrained in us that it sounds shocking to say that maybe they shouldn’t always be the first priority. Without a solid explanation for what we mean by it, it sounds selfish, and negligent….it sounds like bad parenting.

But when you dig deeper, you begin to see how taking care of yourself first--like I talked about in last week’s post--makes sense. That’s a cause we can rally behind. All moms need to…

In last week’s post, I talked about using the motto “small things often” to nurture your relationship with yourself, your partner, and your baby. Today, I’m going deeper into what this really means for moms.

For some of us, something happens after we cross the threshold into motherhood.  

It’s almost a bit of an identity crisis. We do for others--baby especially--and start to lose sight of doing for ourselves. I don’t mean that we’re suddenly incapable. I mean we just de-prioritize our needs f…

Ah, there’s something about a new year that always feels like a clean slate. Even if you’re not a resolution-setter.

But, if you think about it, each new day is also a clean slate.

I’m a big fan of keeping things simple.  

So, even though today I have a really big question to ask you, when you actually put the question to practice in your day-to-day, the answer is really in the small, simple things you do each day.

The big question is: What are you going to do to take care of or con…

Parenting is so hard.  

I think one thing that we become acutely aware of once we become parents is that there’s so much we want to show our kids, teach our kids, about the world, about themselves, about fairness, about love….

In a way, it’s sort of like throwing a bowl of spaghetti at the window and seeing what sticks.

There’s so much they’ll take in. Some of it we’re conscious of and some maybe not so much. And we often can’t predict what makes an impression on them. But, we can be re…

Well, it’s that time of year again...  (And no, I don’t mean it’s time for more holiday advice.  Not today!)

It’s time to review the best blog posts of 2018!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdAKR-7pk0&w=854&h=480

You know, I work really hard along with my team to put out the content that I think you most want to read, but sometimes you never know what’s going to resonate the most. So some of these really didn’t surprise me, but there are a few that really did.

This year, readers wer…

Do you ever come back from staying with family for the holidays and think, “Well, the kids had a great time, but that was really hard for us to just sit back and enjoy it all”?

Does it feel like you barely even saw your partner, and when you did, you both were just getting annoyed with each other?

Maybe you're already in the thick of it now. Or, prepping for upcoming travel to get the holidays started.

With the increase of travel, extended family dynamics, and close-quarters accommodations, t…

Want to learn real techniques to bring on more calm this holiday season? Join Calm By Design

Ever feel like this isn’t how it’s supposed to be?

“Supposed to” is one of those words that gets us into trouble.  

(Kind of like “should," right? --that’s another trouble-making word that we’ll have to save for another time.)

“Supposed to” tells us that there’s a certain way things are meant to be and that anything outside of that is wrong.  

But we all think that way from time to time.

If you’re …

Want to learn real techniques to bring on more calm this holiday season? Join Calm By Design

Show of hands: How many of you are expecting a baby this month? Or in December? Or a New Year’s baby?

If this is you, first off, congratulations. There’s no better holiday gift. But also, I know exactly what’s on your mind these days...  

As if waiting on your baby’s debut (early, late or right on time?) or bringing baby home (Congratulations, here’s your baby. Now go home and figure out how to be par…

Let’s be really honest about the holiday season for a minute.

Yes, they’re magical.

Yes, they’re fun.

Yes, they’re beautiful.

Yes, they’re full of friends, and family, and traditions we love.

BUT….

They’re also BUSY. They’re also STRESSFUL. They’re also EXPENSIVE.

And, they also can cause some conflict in our relationships.

• Whether it’s conflict with our partners because we just have very different ideas of what the holidays should mean or how they should be spent...

• Or whether …

A gratitude practice doesn’t solve all our problems.  

There, I said it. It really doesn’t.

I know, I know. I spent an entire blog post last week talking about the benefits of gratitude and different types of gratitude practices.

But, when gratitude doesn’t work, I think it’s worth asking ourselves if that’s because a daily gratitude practice simply isn’t enough to fix the problem.

(This is why antidepressants and food shelves exist, for example. And if this is the case for you, the…

 If you’ve been on social media lately, I’m guessing your feed has been inundated with three things in the last week:  

Halloween photos, midterm election posts, and 30-day gratitude challenge posts.

By now, the Halloween posts are probably waning. The election posts--or political posts in general--don’t show any signs of stopping though. But, at least right now, there are more celebratory posts than angry rants, right?

And if you haven’t seen any gratitude posts on your feed, then you’…

If you’ve ever miscarried or lost a baby, you might feel the expectation from the people around you to bounce back or move on. You might even place that expectation on yourself.

Maybe “expectation” isn’t even the right word.  

It’s more like, life just continues on like normal with or without you being ready for it. As if your baby or your pregnancy wasn’t real or never happened. Like it was here and now it’s just….gone.  

Many moms don’t discuss it. Maybe you’re one that didn’t.  You m…

Grief affects every one of us sooner or later.

I’ve been talking all month about the specific grief that comes from losing a pregnancy or losing your baby. There’s no other kind of grief that is quite like it.

And, unfortunately, it’s a quiet grief. It’s not one we talk about much. In fact, there’s probably a woman you know who is dealing with this right now and you have no idea. We tend to keep it to ourselves--either because we’re afraid no one will understand, or we feel like we should …

Last week, I talked to you briefly about how October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. 1 in 4 women will experience a miscarriage or lose their baby. This means that you definitely know someone in your family or social circle who has experienced this.  

So, today, I want to share some resources I rely on with you that might help you if you’re struggling with this or know someone who is.

These are online resources that can help, no matter where you live, plus a couple th…

October is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month. This is so important for every one of us to be aware of--because even if you’ve never experienced this yourself, I can almost guarantee someone close to you has.

1 in 4 women will experience a miscarriage or lose their baby in their lifetime. Think about that for a minute. 1 in 4. Think about how many women you know. And maybe a few of them have told you (or you heard through the grapevine) that they’ve experienced this kind of loss, bu…

I’ve been talking a lot on the blog lately about ways to get the support you need when you’re really doubting yourself as a parent--how to know when you need advice and when you just need encouragement, what to do with advice that doesn’t fit, and dealing with unsolicited advice from relatives and strangers.  

Today, though, I want to talk about finding that inner confidence as a parent, so that you can squash self-doubt and overwhelm all on your own. Truth be told, it doesn’t happen ove…

Are you the kind of mom that appreciates parenting advice from others?

Or, does that stuff annoy you every time?

Maybe it depends on the situation, the question, the messenger.

Every mom I know feels vulnerable and questions themselves at least once in a while.  (There’s nothing quite like motherhood to make even the most confident, competent woman question herself.)

With time, of course, we learn a whole new level of confidence, not sweating the small stuff or comparing oursel…

Today, I’m going to keep this short and sweet.  

Last week, I talked to you about the role of grandparents in our lives and why it’s so important to communicate with your little ones’ grandparents about what kind of support you need.

They all want to be involved in their own way.

• But sometimes they aren’t the type to jump in and handle things because they just don’t want to step on your toes.

  
  

• Sometimes they are comfortable with jumping in to lend a hand, but they ju…

Grandparents Day was this past Sunday. I don’t know if this is a thing people actually celebrate, but maybe we should be.

The role of a grandparent in a kid’s life can be such a special thing. I know I felt a special closeness to my own grandparents. Maybe you did too.

It can also be a godsend to us parents when we need a break and a heart-warmer when we see their special bond with our littles grow.

But I also know that when you have a new baby or toddler at home, navigating that …

Confession time, mommas. Sometimes self-care is really hard to be consistent with. Even for a therapist and mom like me.

I think we all struggle with this one--at least from time to time, if not all the time.

And when we fall off the wagon with it or have struggled to implement new self-care habits in the first place, the hardest part is starting.

It’s kind of like--well, I don’t know about you, but this is definitely true for me: Getting to the gym is the hardest part of exe…

I talk about self-care a lot. Like, A LOT, a lot.

And it’s not just me. Self-care became a buzzword years ago and it doesn’t show any signs of disappearing anytime soon.

I think this is a good thing… and a bad thing.

It’s great because we would all do better to slow down and tune into ourselves a little more often to ask, “What do I need right now?”

But, it’s also kind of a bad thing because there’s so much misunderstanding about what self-care really is.  

Mass m…

And, I mean, it makes sense. Many of us moms work, which means someone else is doing the caregiving for a significant portion of the day. And then, we come home and it’s boom-boom-boom. We have to do the whole dinner, bathtime, bedtime routine, with the rush hour commute in between. It often feels like there isn’t much time to “just be” with our kids.

But, it’s not just working mothers…

Last week, I showed you how to use my Postpartum Support Matrix worksheet to help you determine where you need extra help and support right now and over the long term.  

This week, I’m showing you the next step: How to manage it all and make sure everything is getting done, even if it’s not you doing every single thing.  

(And, in doing this, if you discover that it IS you doing every single thing, you’ll also discover how to pass those things off to someone else.)

One of the most …

Are you so overwhelmed or exhausted that you can’t even think of what to delegate when people ask how they can help? 

Or, maybe asking people for help just feels too hard, but you’d love to try to let yourself off the hook a little? 

I get it. Completely.  

For one thing, as a mom,  I’ve been there myself. For another, this is something that comes up in my therapy practice ALL the time.

That’s why I cre…

For years, I'd say the worst question anyone could ask me is "What's for dinner?" 

I know I'm not alone in this.  Whether you love to cook or not, it's deciding what to make that is the most exhausting. And it's only made worse when it's followed by groans of "Ew, not that again...." 

Now, there are a variety of ways to solve this problem in our modern world. Of course, we can simply go out to eat. But that gets expensive. And sometimes it gets old. 

Some like those meal delivery servi…

Today is the 4th of July, a day for celebrating freedom and independence. But when you’re a parent, our experience of freedom changes a little bit, doesn’t it? It’s suddenly not quite so easy as hopping in the car spontaneously and driving for hours and hours.

But, still, road tripping with kids can be done. It just requires a little more planning and different expectations. In fact, our family takes a road trip this time of year every year.

Our kids are 8 and 5 years old, so we sho…

One of the most common issues moms bring up to me is that it’s so hard to find their mom tribe. Whether it’s online or in real life, it’s hard to figure out where we fit in or find that place where we can feel supported and not judged for our choices, fears and struggles.  

And yet, I really think it’s one of the most important things for all moms to have in place--that circle of friends who get it, who can lift us up when we’re down or just let us cry without offering advice or critici…

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, then you’re probably familiar with my Momma Interviews series. I’ve loved doing them and I frequently get positive feedback from readers saying how much they look forward to them.

But I feel like we’re only getting half of the story.  

I’ve been wanting to do a series of Dads Interviews for such a long time. And today--just in time for Fathers Day this weekend--I’m so excited to kick off the Dads Interviews series with Quentin Hafner!